NJ may do something to refuel transportation trust fund

New Jersey collects a total of 14.5 cents a gallon on motor fuels, making it 49th in the nation for gasoline tax. Only Alaska collects less, 8 cents a gallon. Neighboring New York has 50.5 cents a gallon. Pennsylvania collects 41.8 cents per gallon, which is supposed to reach 58 cents in three years.
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It looks like the stars may have aligned so that New Jersey can actually do something to replenish the bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund, thus prohibiting the state’s infrastructure from slipping more into rot and ruin.

There is the formation of ForwardNJ, a coalition of groups whose focus is reformation of the Garden State’s transportation system. The organization, headed by Tom Bracken, president of the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce, recently noted that in less than a year the transportation trust fund will reach insolvency.

Jamie Fox, who was head of the state Department of Transportation in 2002 before he moved on to be chief of staff for Gov. Jim McGreevey, was nominated by Gov. Chris Christie to take over the transportation department again. Fox, a lobbyist who has a long record as a Democratic Party fixer, then was approved by the Senate in record time.

Senate President Steve Sweeney, who many think wants to be governor, has been traveling the state talking about the need to fix the transportation system and fix the system that finances it.

The biggest problem is where to get the money. It is estimated the state needs $20 billion over the next 10 years to maintain and improve the state’s roads, bridges and mass transportation systems.

The money for transportation has come partly from the tax paid on gas. Why isn’t that adequate now? For one thing, those demands drivers have been making for more fuel-efficient vehicles are being met. For another, administrations have been putting off facing the problem head-on for so long that most of the money we pay in gas tax is going to pay off money borrowed to avoid dealing with the issue.

A quick history: Gov. Tom Kean created the trust fund. New Jersey taxes gas at 10.5 cents a gallon at the pump. It also has a 4-cent-a-gallon petroleum gross receipts tax on motor fuels at refineries and distributors. It totals 14.5 cents.

That makes New Jersey 49th in the nation for gasoline tax. Only Alaska collects less, 8 cents a gallon. Neighboring New York has 50.5 cents a gallon. Across the Delaware River, Pennsylvania collects 41.8 cents per gallon, which is supposed to reach 58 cents in three years.

New Jersey’s tax hasn’t gone up since 1988 because governors and lawmakers are reluctant to mess with the one tax that isn’t the highest in the nation. Another reason is voters don’t trust New Jersey politicians to spend any tax the way they say they will.

The McGreevey administration gave the state a $1.50 per tire tax. That includes the four tires and the donut in the trunk on new cars for which you already paid state sales tax. It was supposed to be used to get rid of those stacks of old tires that served as fuel for arsonists and breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

It did go for that at first, but pretty soon the tax was used for other things.

Sweeney understands the public’s frustrations all too well. He said any new tax for transportation has to be constitutionally mandated to be used only for transportation. Even then it will be a hard sell.

Christie has been against any new taxes, which his critics say is more about his presidential ambitions that keeping New Jersey’s transportation system safe and sound. But even he has said that everything’s on the table for now.

There may be a loophole for gas, thanks to Grover Norquist, the anti-tax activist who runs Americans for Tax Reform and is a favorite of ultra conservatives. When the federal 18.4 cents-a-gallon gasoline tax was about to expire, Norquist said it was OK with him if Congress extended the tax for now. He said he had rather push for a broad overhaul of the system but that would take a few years.

It is estimated that bad roads cost New Jersey motorists an average of $600 a year in repairs. Bad roads force more materials to be moved by rail and as the 2012 derailment and toxic chemical spill in 2012 at Mantua Creek in Paulsboro showed, our rails are nothing to write home about either.

Bob Ingle is senior New Jersey political columnist. He can be reached via email at bingle@app.com.